Media X Researchers to Explore Fusion Between the Virtual and Real Worlds

from ACM technews 10/31/02

Media X Researchers to Explore Fusion Between the Virtual
and Real Worlds

Stanford University (10/31/07)
"Stanford University's Media X unites academic researchers and industry
partners to study interactive communications and technology by integrating
communications, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, business, and
design studies. Media X grants have been awarded to seven
multidisciplinary teams of researchers dedicated to exploring how people
use and share information and collaborate in virtual worlds. "The fusion
of virtual and physical worlds for advanced communications represents a new
field of interdisciplinary inquiry," says communication professor Byron
Reeves, co-founder of Media X and the Human Sciences and Technologies
Advanced Research Institute (H-STAR). The seven Media X grants will be
used to study a variety of topics. One study will explore the
virtual-physical-social interplay by examining how social experiences and
interactions in physical places change with the addition of digital
information, and how digital experiences change with physical information.
Another study will develop virtual sensornets to allow scientists to
construct instruments for measuring what is happening in virtual worlds,
and will allow users to control and monitor what is being recorded. Other
studies will examine if virtual worlds create optimal conditions for
learning and what are the legal regimes that govern virtual communities."

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